


Whole

by Northland



Category: Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin, LE GUIN Ursula K. - Works
Genre: Community: earthsea_fic, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 08:22:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northland/pseuds/Northland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To mend a thing you had to know the ways in which it broke: how glass splintered into tiny sparks and shards, or stone cracked along its planes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whole

**Author's Note:**

> Another repost of an old piece. This was originally written for the 2009 Earthsea_fic ficathon on LiveJournal, to the prompt "pre-canon Alder/Lily."

Love did not come to Alder swift and shocking, as it had to Morred and Elfarran and so many others in the old songs. Instead it was like sunrise; the air brightened almost imperceptibly, until the moment Alder realized that Lily was dearer to him than anything else, and her presence lent colour to everything he did, or saw, or felt.

"Like those clear glass cups for serving wine at the Prince's table," Alder tried to explain it once to his friend Flood the harper. "Lily just... filled me."

*

They had travelled to the northern end of Taon to heal a forester whose thigh had shattered when a rotten branch fell on him. Desperate to avoid having the leg taken off, he had sent for the town witches who claimed they could mend bone--even though it meant days waiting in agonizing pain while the village healer laboured to keep the swollen limb from putrefaction. Together Alder and Lily had patiently searched out each sliver piercing his flesh and convinced the spongy mass at the centre of the bone to join again.

That was what had surprised Alder most, when they began to knit bone. To mend a thing you had to know the ways in which it broke: how glass splintered into tiny sparks and shards, or stone cracked along its planes. He hadn't known that bone was alive, like chambered sea coral or the heart of a great tree, until he learned it from Lily.

The two of them could do nothing for the torn muscle and seeping blood around the mended bone. But the healer knew her trade, as was clear from the fact that the man had lived long enough for Lily and Alder to work theirs, so his chance of walking again seemed likely. The forester's grateful housemate pressed dinner on them and promised them the finest piece of furniture he could craft. "A fine wide bed for the two of you, now, would that be to your liking? Or perhaps you'll be needing a cradle soon."

At first it had amused Lily and Alder when other folk assumed they were wife and husband. Now they accepted it without contradiction. Both knew that they loved, and though they had not spoken of it yet, being quiet and slow to act, both knew that soon they would be lovers. Lily reached out to lay her hand over Alder's, and as he met her sideways glance his whole body leaned toward hers.

They left early in the evening, and talked little along the road. The vast hush of Taon’s uplands was magnified by the whirr of a few early crickets in the hedgerow and the clang of a cowbell as one late heifer made her way home to the milking stool. The sky was still washed with colour from the vanished sun, shading from shell pink to smoke blue in the east. It was a warm, windless night and they made no fire. When Alder came to Lily's arms he could barely see her eyes shining and the gleam of red in her dark hair loosed from its ties.

In the morning, he woke first and watched the clear gold light gather on her dear face. As they took up their packs he said, "When we are married--" and Lily turned back quickly. He stopped. Did she...? But no, she was smiling. She took his hand and said, "I think you mean, now that we are married." He nodded, and kissed her once more.

The roadside grass was cold and wet with dew, and their feet left shining tracks as they found the way again.


End file.
